Bold Lies: DI Kelly Porter Book Five

Chapter 1

George looked across the lake. It was a beauty. Like all of them, it sat serene and calm, like a feline at rest, waiting to pounce; driven by cloud and pressure from above. He peered skywards but was satisfied that he had time to catch one more fish. His permit had always been sorted by his dear friend Alan, but that was no longer possible. The old man had enjoyed a good innings, as they say. The cricketing reference would have pleased him; that was how they’d met, after all.

The boat rocked gently and he heard the screams of children kayaking in the distance. Derwent Water was fairly quiet out of season, and large enough to cater for all tastes. The big house had its own private beach, but no one owned the lake; that belonged to everyone, and rightly so. He smiled, thinking of his daughter’s laugh. He still hadn’t forgotten.

His line tugged and his concentration was taken to the crystal-clear depths, and a fuss under the gentle ebb and flow of the water lapping at the side of his boat. He allowed some line to be yanked away and then reeled it in a little: whatever it was wasn’t large. The poor thing also didn’t give him much of a scrap, coming to the surface straight away and practically rolling over exhausted after a minor scuffle: snowflake generation, thought George.

His mouth fell open.

He’d only gone and caught a bloody vendace! The freshwater herring was supposed to be extinct, but he’d heard rumours of a revival. He reached gently into the water and cupped the wriggling silver body: she was beautiful. He admired the colours shining off her skin, and was almost tempted to keep her. He’d been using a hook for fish much bigger than this little mite, but it had only caught the side of her mouth, and he removed it with ease, lowering her back into the water for her to revive and dart away.

His day couldn’t have gone better, but then he remembered that he’d forgotten to take a photograph; now no one would believe him. He had no idea if he’d even brought his damn phone with him.

He packed away his gear, then picked up the oars, and headed for the private beach. There was a motorboat, of course, but he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to chug toxic fumes into the clear air in this wonderful place. He gave thanks to his old friend; he would toast his memory tonight, as he always did when he came here to keep an eye on the place. The burden was not insignificant, but he understood the motives behind the decision. It had made him unpopular, but that wasn’t a first and it certainly didn’t put him off. The most important thing was that he was honouring the dying wish of an old gentleman.

George couldn’t imagine moving here. Well, not yet, anyway. There was too much invested in London. It would take years to transfer everything and make it ready. And it was a pipe dream anyhow.

By the time he eased his small boat onto the shingle beach, the sky was getting dark. Even though it was June, the mountains could make everything turn to night if they wanted to. He glanced up at the peaks behind the house: they were covered in thick grey cloud that showed no signs of clearing. It was time to go in and make sure he had a fire lit. The kitchen was always warm, thanks to the Aga. But the main fire in the sitting room was magnificent and George had lit it every night in remembrance of nights with Alan, sitting in front of it sipping a fifty-year-old Janneau Napoleon. The cellar in the old pile was Alan’s pride and joy, and George couldn’t bring himself to clear it out just yet. Apart from to open the odd bottle of red with dinner, of course. He never was very good at telling the difference between a bottle worth a thousand pounds and one from Tesco, but they all tasted good from Alan’s collection.

He left the boat on the beach and walked up to the house, stopping when he saw that he had a visitor. It wasn’t entirely a surprise, and he held out his hand in greeting.

‘Come in, I’m just about to put a lasagne in the oven,’ he said. Their feet made scraping noises in the gravel and George stopped outside the kitchen door to take off his wellington boots. His visitor didn’t bother.

‘Who were those men?’ he asked.

‘What men?’

‘They drove past me on their way out. Don’t tell me you’ve got plans for the place already?’

Chapter 2

Derwent Marina was quiet. The small building, set back from the beach, with seats outside and at least fifty boats and vessels for hire, was a modest operation. The car park catered for about ten cars. The place ticked along during the winter but saw a steady trade build from the spring onwards. There were boats and kayaks available to buy, but mainly it was rentals that brought in the steady flow of cash that enabled Graeme Millar to pay his mortgage and live a comfortable life. He paid a few locals to fit buoyancy aids, size up wetsuits and generally keep the place clean and tidy, but he ran the business and was responsible for the upkeep of the plot. The land didn’t belong to him; he paid rent to a landlord who refused to sell up. In fact, most of Derwent Water’s coastline was privately owned by wealthy families desperate to cling on to illustrious histories but unsure of how to maintain their enormous estates. Most had been turned into luxury holiday homes, or water sports centres.

Allerdale House was no different. It stood huddled behind trees on the lake’s western shore, away from the prying eyes of the tourists crammed onto the steamer puffing between Keswick and Lodore every day. But a kayaker, strong of arm and curious to boot, might catch a glimpse of the grand slate facade, slightly up a hill and facing east. The trees shielding the residence from nosy visitors had been planted over two hundred years ago, and the only indication that they guarded something special was a sign on the beach that read: Private: Keep Out! No landing on the beach. Graeme Millar told every customer the same, and even supplied a map showing which beaches they were allowed to paddle up to. The red lines denoted no-go areas, and there were plenty of them. With Allerdale House’s owner passing away after Christmas, who knew what would become of the place.

At 9 a.m. the wind was insignificant, and Graeme knew that it would be a good day for business. It was Whitsun week and the kids were on half-term. Sure enough, two cars pulled into the car park and children got out, looking at the water and approaching the kayaks with delight. He always recommended two hours for families with small kids, because he knew that it would take them at least an hour to make it out of the marina. Derwent Water was just under three miles long, but an inexperienced kayaker would be lucky to get halfway down before having to turn back again, either through cold or exertion. There were a few islands in between to keep them occupied, including the one where Swallows and Amazons was set, though Graeme reckoned that the majority of kids hauled to the Lake District on holiday these days hadn’t even heard of the book.

He called one of his staff over to get the families booked in while he checked the boathouse to see if the three rowing boats he’d had to pull from the water last week were repaired and varnished yet. Major repairs were carried out in the winter, and the wooden vessels had only needed a tweak or two. The boats were his livelihood and they needed looking after properly.

To an outsider, the boatyard looked like a tip; a junkyard of detritus and bits of wood. In fact it churned out new boats every year, and a launch was currently being renovated in the shed. The Lady of the Lake was a stunning ninety-seater, a 1929 model; once a dayboat on the Amsterdam canals, then a tourist tripper on Lake Windermere, she’d made her debut on Derwent Water in 1985. She’d needed a season out of the water and a loving refurbishment. Graeme swung open the doors of the main shed and admired the gleaming mahogany and oak panelling. Her name had been repainted and she looked glorious and ready for action. He sucked in the morning air tinged with varnish and cleaning chemicals. But something else caught his attention.

‘Damn cats!’ Graeme was a dog lover, and to him, cats were vermin, killing local wildlife and scavenging from the campsite two hundred yards down the shore. Today one of them had obviously caught a bird and brought it in here to rot, or perhaps something bigger, like a rat. He made a cursory circuit of the boat, finding nothing but noting that the smell was worse near the stern, especially by the cabin. He tutted. He’d have to climb up there to make sure. The last thing they needed was the Lady being put back into service with an animal carcass somewhere on board.

He went back out into the morning sunshine and towards the smaller shed, where the rowing boats were upended and ready to be carried back to the marina. Two were six-seaters and one a four-seater. They took a good hammering during the peak season, but they were sturdy craft and had been in service since before the 1950s. All the wooden vessels in the marina were way older than Graeme, and they’d no doubt outlive him too.

It wasn’t until lunchtime that he got the opportunity to tackle the problem of the Lady’s suspected passenger. He ate his sandwich before venturing back to the shed with a ladder, thinking that whatever he might have to dispose of could well put him off his food. Trade had been steady throughout the morning and he pushed aside the worries that plagued him throughout the long, quiet winter, as he did every year. His was essentially a seasonal income, and he’d been through some tight scrapes.

Walking back to the shed through the trees, he avoided the wettest parts of the ground, which lay exposed and unpaved just as they had a hundred years ago. Patches of gravel had been laid, but not on the shortcut that he took. He looked south and whistled to himself, stopping and smiling as the clouds parted over Cat Bells. It was probably the most iconic of the spines around here, and when the sun shone, there was nowhere more breath-taking. He made out a snaking stream of walkers trudging up to the summit, their bright coats looking like a line of tacks on a map. It was the busiest Wainwright in the whole National Park.

When he opened the shed door, his heart sank. The smell had worsened. He sighed and set the ladder up, climbing onto the vessel and pulling back the tarpaulin. She looked exquisite. He hopped over the edge and his stomach turned over. Something had definitely died up here and it was creating an eye-watering stench.

He bent down and peered under the seats, which were warm and reminiscent of boatyards of long ago, when steam and beam was the only way to travel. He covered his mouth: nothing. Following his nose, he walked back to the cabin. Twenty-five of the launch’s seats were under cover, an essential arrangement in the Lake District. On rainy days, scuffles for shelter sometimes caused moments of rage between passengers. The smell was definitely worse back here and he knelt down again. Nothing. He stood up, puzzled, and walked towards the bridge, covering his mouth again as he neared the control panel. Another tarp covered the helm.

‘Bloody hell!’ This was no bird, he thought. He wondered if a dog had crawled in here to die. The stench was reminiscent of a dead sheep on the fells, covered in maggots and sweet with rot. His hand shook and he felt foolish for being so apprehensive. He’d seen dead animals all his life. It was unpleasant, that was all.

He pulled back the tarp.

An adrenalin rush took hold of his body. He ran to the ladder, leaping onto it before his brain could even process what he’d seen. He stumbled on the slippery rungs and jumped from halfway to the gravel below. His legs shook and he retched as he left the shed and ran to the water’s edge to be sick.

Slowly his senses returned to him, and he took his mobile phone from his pocket and dialled 999.

Chapter 3

In a rented garage in Bethnal Green, ten minutes from the Tube station and five from the best Thai restaurant in east London, Emily Wilson closed her computer. Mike was finishing up with the incubators that housed flasks containing the proteins of brain cells, and he’d already locked the two sterile cabinets containing their most dangerous compounds. From the inside, they could have been in a maximum-security laboratory in a slick facility in Washington, under top-secret instructions from the White House to find a cure for all pathogens. As it was, the lab was home-made from top to bottom, and no one apart from four people knew it existed.

The four scientists had worked in the industry for a total of over a hundred years. They knew what they were doing.

But that was the point. And that was why they’d told no one. They were close to finalising eleven years of research.

George was on holiday, and Alexandros had left early to call his mother in Cyprus. Alex was thirty-nine years old, but his mother treated him like he was still ten. She checked that he’d eaten, that he’d slept well, and that he’d booked his flights home for the summer. Today she’d texted him to say that the family cat, Aphrodite, had finally passed away peacefully after eighteen years of idleness and luxury. She had been distraught. Alex had made his apologies before he left, and Mike and Emily had poked fun at him, pretending to be offended. But it had been a good day, and they were going out to celebrate later that evening. George was on his way back, and was due to join them in the Thai restaurant. He had told them that he had some exciting news to share with them.

They all felt an excitement that they hadn’t felt for a long time, something akin to the birth of a new baby, or a daughter getting married, or, they assumed, winning the lottery. George was the father figure to them all; the project had been his idea, and his conception. His whole life’s work was invested in this little lab in the middle of a council estate near the Regent’s Canal, where they’d worked like moles in the dark for years, testing, retesting, dedicating hours after a full-time shift at their day jobs to come here and look at one more slide, observe one more alteration, discard one more compound. Often they worked into the night, but it had all been worth it. George’s condition was showing signs of coming under control, and sometimes they couldn’t quite believe what they were on the verge of achieving. Emily and Mike both had families to attend to, but they still committed way more time than they should, and George was grateful.

A clatter outside made Emily look up and peer through her goggles. Mike did the same and caught her eye, shrugging. They were used to the odd scrap outside between teenagers, or a drunken brawl involving bottles and brawn. She took off her goggles and stretched. The four of them were friends as well as colleagues, all employed by the pharmaceutical giant Ravensword. The lab in Bethnal Green was an extracurricular activity. They didn’t get paid. They did it because they believed in it.

Their clandestine meeting room was affectionately known as the Squash Club, because that was where Emily and Mike told their respective spouses they were when they spent hours away from home. George wasn’t married any more, and his only child had tragically passed away. Alex was a free spirit, with no shortage of interested girls but no desire to commit just yet. His dark good looks made him hugely popular in the bars and clubs he frequented, and it gave him an exotic edge. He shared his various encounters with the others in the Squash Club, garnering advice from his elders and envy from George, who looked back nostalgically on his own youth. They were a tight unit. Like family.

There was a checklist to adhere to every evening when they shut the lab, and Mike ran through it now with Emily, who yawned again. The last job on the list was to lock the inner facility and turn off all the lights. A generator kept the incubators going, as well as the dimmed lights inside the cabinets.

The lab was like a skin inside the garage walls, and once outside, they both felt the rush of cold air. They were like lab rats themselves when they were locked inside, methodically transferring compounds from one plate to another, looking for changes that might indicate a match. Mike locked the door and secured the bolt. There was perhaps three feet of space between the outer garage and the inner lab, and they barely had room to fasten coats and pull up hoods. Despite it being June, it was late, and the sun had long disappeared.

Neither heard the main door open.

Mike was the first to be hit. A large instrument slammed into his head, splitting his skull apart and dropping him to his knees. Before Emily could scream, two hands grabbed her throat and twisted her head to one side before forcing it the other way with such force that it tore the skin around her throat, snapping her cervical spine and severing her spinal column. She fell on top of Mike.

The two attackers closed the outer door and got to work. First they stripped the couple and bagged their clothes. Garments were taken from a suitcase and scattered on the floor, as though left there in haste by a pair of lovers. Next the inner lab was unlocked and the bodies dragged inside. One of the men answered his mobile phone and nodded. ‘Only two,’ he said.

The van was waiting outside. Three more men came in and began stripping the lab. Everything was to go: the cabinets, the benches, the fridges, the Flexi chairs bought by George as a treat last Christmas; the rats, two mini pigs, one cyno monkey – which was quickly subdued by injection – as well as the pictures on the walls of grandparents, children, holidays and weddings.

After the lab was emptied, the men disappeared for a few minutes and came back dressed in white protective suits, carrying cleaning equipment. They began scrubbing the floor and walls. Finally, when the place looked more like a garage again, the bodies were positioned. The men opened Emily’s legs and placed Mike on top of her. One of them pulled his trousers down and simulated anal sex with Mike. Another took a picture on his iPhone. Finally, a scrap of paper was placed on the bodies. On it was written in blue pen: Bitch.

A groan caught their attention and they were startled to realise that Mike was still alive. One of the men pulled his foot back and kicked his head like a football. Mike fell silent, and the man who’d kicked him bent over and put his fingers to his throat: nothing.

The men left and got back in the van. It was fully dark now, and there was no one about. Another man, who hadn’t been part of the tidy-up, came into the garage and looked around. Satisfied, he nodded and took out his phone, snapping a few pictures to prove that the job had been done and done well. Then he left, locking both the inner and outer doors using the keys he’d been provided with.

Inside the lab, Mike’s mobile phone began to ring.

Chapter 4

Detective Inspector Kelly Porter stared at her computer screen. The office was undergoing a quasi-refurbishment: a few new chairs, a new carpet and a paint job. HR had ruled the old stiff chairs ergonomically unsound, and the whole force was getting replacements that could be set at the user’s preferred angle. Kelly had to admit they were comfortable. Some of her colleagues had spent the morning racing up and down the corridor on them. DC Rob Shawcross had just beaten DC Emma Hide three to two, and she was refusing to shake his hand. As a responsible senior officer, Kelly should have admonished them, but it was highly entertaining to watch. No blood or coffee had been spilled and it had taken mere minutes out of their day. On top of that, it had lifted the spirits of everyone who’d worked on the Tombday case three years ago. David Crawley had appealed his sentence, and the Old Bailey had delivered its verdict this morning.

Tombday had been a complex web of money-laundering and trafficking, run by businessmen in the Lakes and reaching way beyond the UK borders. David Crawley had only been one cog in the wheel, but he was a childhood friend of Kelly’s and an ex-boyfriend. It was a touchy subject. The Court of Appeal had argued that it was never proved that he had obtained material benefit from the people he’d carried in his lorries, and that he was unaware of the transactions made in order to get them there. It was also ruled that the persons had come willingly rather than being coerced, and it was questionable that he had ever intentionally planned to exploit them. In fact, there were so many sections of the Trafficking Act that the original case failed to satisfy that Crawley’s offences were reduced to aiding and abetting, carrying a five-year sentence. On account of his impeccable record sheet in prison, and the fact that he’d served almost three years already, he had been freed this morning.

It was a huge blow.

DC Emma Hide brought Kelly a coffee and placed it on her desk. Kelly looked up and smiled at her junior. Her iPad pinged and she flipped it open to notifications from HQ. A 999 call had been transferred to the serious crime unit for North Lakes, and Kelly was expected to move on it straight away. She toyed with sending Emma along, but decided against it because she wanted some fresh air. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep herself tied to her chair, and this was a serious crime scene. She’d handed out plenty of domestics, illegal hunting and burglaries to her team. But this was different. A body had been found at Derwent Marina. As yet, it was unidentified. The only information she had was that it was male, and had been found by Graeme Millar, who ran the marina. If Graeme hadn’t recognised the victim, then chances were he wasn’t local. That raised a flag for Kelly. It meant that he was either a tourist or a traveller. A forensic officer was already at the scene.

‘Emma, I’ve got to go out. Are you working on the burglary at Allerdale House?’

‘Yes, guv. I think Kate said she was in between paperwork, though.’

‘How’s it going?’

A local call early this morning had alerted police to something suspicious at Allerdale House’s boatshed. People knew one another round the lake, and apparently a kayaker had spotted that the doors were open and passed the information on to the police. Upon inspection, the first uniforms on the scene discovered that a crime had occurred.

Old Lord Allerdale was dead, but his grandson and heir, Sebastian Montague-Roland, had been tracked down in London, and had supplied a list of items stored in the shed. The house had been standing empty for the last six months, but there were rumours that building work was due to start there to renovate the place and turn it into a luxury leisure complex.

At first glance, the robbery looked like an opportunist break-in. An old pile like that with no one living in it was tempting for the criminal-minded, but apparently some of the equipment taken from the boathouse was valuable. This raised Kelly’s interest, as it meant that the place could have been targeted.

‘The site is still being processed, guv.’ Emma was dressed in casual gear and could have been planning to sprint out of the door for a run at any moment: but then she always looked like that, and carried it off. Kelly glanced down at her feet, and sure enough, she was wearing trainers. Kelly was relaxed about dress, up to a point. If they were driving round Cumbria, in and out of sheds and boat huts, then formal gear just wasn’t practical.

‘Can you ask Kate to come in here?’ she asked. Emma nodded and disappeared. Kelly sipped her coffee and scanned the few details she’d been given about the body found at the marina. Male, over fifty, Caucasian and naked. That was it. She knew Graeme Millar through Johnny; they drank in the same watering holes after a fell race or a lake swim. The Keswick area was extensive to an outsider, but the fell-racing world was an exclusive and tiny club, one that Johnny had only recently become part of. He and Graeme had much in common, in that Graeme had spent five years as an infantry officer around the same time as Johnny had been serving. They had an instant connection. It was the beginning of weekends of sailing lessons, and the inspiration behind Johnny’s boat purchase. Wendy had been transferred to Derwent Marina from Pooley Bridge in the spring, and Graeme turned a blind eye to the mooring fee.

DS Kate Umshaw came into Kelly’s office and sat down. ‘I do like these chairs.’

‘I know. I think they’re a bit too comfortable, though. We need to take a drive to Keswick.’

Kate raised an eyebrow. Everybody knew she preferred paperwork. This was one of the reasons Kelly wanted to get her out of the office for a change.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

‘Body. Derwent Marina.’ Kelly shared the sparse details she had so far, and grabbed her coat. Kate did the same.

‘Forensics are there. Let’s hope it’s just a drunk who found somewhere to shelter and stripped off.’

‘Did he die of exposure? In June?’

‘Might be a suicide. How are the nicotine patches going?’ Kelly asked.

‘Dull. It’s the worst decision of my life,’ Kate said. Kelly shook her head. Kate was one of those smokers who would choose a fag over a life jacket.

They checked in with the rest of the team before they left, then headed to the lift. Eden House had several floors, and their office was at the top. Uniforms manned the lower floors, and the two women acknowledged nods as they filed out of the building towards Kelly’s car.

They’d only gone a few hundred yards when Kelly began to feel the benefits of being out of the